OneDrive Has Stopped Working On Non-NTFS Drives (arstechnica.com)

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OneDrive Has Stopped Working On Non-NTFS Drives (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday July 6, 2017 @09:20AM from the head-scratching dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: OneDrive users around the world have been upset to discover that with its latest update, Microsoft's cloud file syncing and storage system no longer works with anything other than disks formatted with the NTFS file system. Both older file systems, such as FAT32 and exFAT, and newer ones, such as ReFS, will now provoke an error message when OneDrive starts up. To continue to use the software, files will have to be stored on an NTFS volume. While FAT disks can be converted, ReFS volumes must be reformatted and wiped. This has left various OneDrive users unhappy. While NTFS is the default file system in Windows, people using SD cards to extend the storage on small laptops and tablets will typically use exFAT. Similarly, people using Storage Spaces to manage large, redundant storage volumes will often use ReFS. The new policy doesn't change anything for most Windows users, but those at the margins will feel hard done by. Microsoft said in a statement that it "discovered a warning message that should have existed was missing when a user attempted to store their OneDrive folder on a non-NTFS filesystem -- which was immediately remedied." According to Ars, Microsoft's position, apparently, is that OneDrive should always have warned about these usage scenarios and that it's only a bug or an oversight that allowed non-NTFS volumes to work.

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ext4 baby ! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:23 · Score: 0

no ntfs !
1. Re:ext4 baby ! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:25 · Score: 0
  
  ext ftw
2. Re:ext4 baby ! by FictionPimp · 2017-07-06 12:24 · Score: 1
  
  Just a FYI, there is a mac client. This article is targeted at windows users, it still works fine on OSX.
3. Re:ext4 baby ! by Desler · 2017-07-06 12:48 · Score: 1
  
  Its just plain dumb from Microsoft to actually NOT develop a Linux or Mac client.
  
  They have a Mac, iOS and Android clients so that they cover 99% of users that matter.
4. Re:ext4 baby ! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 21:08 · Score: 0
  
  Except that it doesn't work on OSX if you have enabled case sensitivity for your system partition.
5. Re:ext4 baby ! by Desler · 2017-07-07 01:55 · Score: 1
  
  So only a fraction of 1% of Mac users will be affected?
6. Re: ext4 baby ! by KGIII · 2017-07-08 00:22 · Score: 1
  
  I have to be frank. I am hard pressed to have sympathy for someone who had a non-standard configuration AND relied on Microsoft OneDrive. I spent my last empathy on somebody more important, to me at least Microsoft could announce that they are going to start murdering children and assuming governorship of a third-world country, solely to exploit their wealth. They could say they are coming to your house, just to piss on your couch, and I'm pretty much out of sympathy.
  I fucking spent it. Really, I spent my sympathy. I think the last bulk amount was spent in Rawanda. I think... The final straw was here, in my own country.
  Seriously, people keep going back for more. People keep going backto Microsoft and paying Microsoft just so they can say to Microsoft, 'Please, sir. May I have another?'
  I stand up for microsoft, pretty often. But, if you pay them money, with any other expectation of getting fucked, you're an idiot. It might not even be Microsoft who fucks you, directly. It may be a contractor, or an external hacker who has varied sets of morals. You're getting fucked.
  It's not unlike Oracle. You will get fucked by Oracle.
  But... Is there any path where they don't get fucked? You even get fucked as a Linux user.
  You might just as well buy good lube.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
Office Space by almitydave · 2017-07-06 09:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

"We... fixed the glitch."

--
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
1. Re:Office Space by alexhs · 2017-07-06 09:51 · Score: 1
  
  Or a schrödingbug that they triggered but didn't fix.
  
  A design or implementation bug in a program that doesn't manifest until someone reading source or using the program in an unusual way notices that it never should have worked, at which point the program promptly stops working for everybody until fixed.
  
  --
  I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
2. Re:Office Space by FatdogHaiku · 2017-07-06 10:38 · Score: 1
  
  Except that making it stop working is their fix...
  It's not like they only want Windows users, so what does forcing an NTFS drive format on people get them, marketable data of some sort?
  Then again it might be totally innocent.
  Hey I got that out with nothing splattered on the screen or anything!
  
  --
  You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
3. Re:Office Space by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 11:43 · Score: 0
  
  It's not like they only want Windows users, so what does forcing an NTFS drive format on people get them, marketable data of some sort?
  It's part of MS's campaign to force the remaining Windows 95 users to upgrade to Windows 10.
4. Re:Office Space by rtb61 · 2017-07-06 12:55 · Score: 2
  
  Hey wait up, what about this https://itunes.apple.com/au/ap... taking into account this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or this https://play.google.com/store/... taking into account this https://arstechnica.com/inform.... So basically just another way to fuck over prior to windows anal probe 10 users who did not default to NTFS because apparently M$ fucking lie onedrive works with a whole bunch of file systems, just not particular M$ file systems.
  
  --
  Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
5. Re:Office Space by AmiMoJo · 2017-07-06 21:28 · Score: 1
  
  It appears that OneDrive needs to store metadata. Apple's filesystem allows that, NTFS allows that, on Android I presume they must be using some kind of database to store it.
  So they could use the database method on FAT filesystems, but then they would have to support and test it. For the 7 people running OneDrive on a FAT filesystem for some reason, it's not really worth supporting.
  Obligatory XKCD.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
6. Re: Office Space by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 23:48 · Score: 0
  
  ReFS is technically only available on servers still, correct? So personal users "shouldn't have" it. I would guess its to keep people from using onedrive to manage network shared data.. cause M$ wants that in their cloud.
7. Re:Office Space by iampiti · 2017-07-07 00:14 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, but I bet there's more than 7 people running OneDrive on ExFat filesystems (don't know about how popular ReFs is).
  This smells of a dick move by Microsoft. The eleven-thousandth one since releasing Windows 10.
8. Re:Office Space by AmiMoJo · 2017-07-07 01:31 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, it's a dick move alright.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
9. Re:Office Space by Desler · 2017-07-07 01:41 · Score: 1
  
  What does Windows 10 have to do with anything? 99% of people have been using NTFS for more than a decade. Why would you possible format hard drives with 100s of GB or multi-terabyte as FAT32?
10. Re:Office Space by Desler · 2017-07-07 01:43 · Score: 1
  
  But 99% or more are using NTFS on Windows. Other than a couple of neckbeards everyone else switched to NTFS when hard drives grew past 32GB.
11. Re: Office Space by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-07 02:07 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe you have a FAT32 partition... to share files with an older system
12. Re: Office Space by Desler · 2017-07-07 02:17 · Score: 1
  
  And I'm supposed to believe that's a common use case why? The vast majority of people use laptops and desktops and have been formatted as NTFS by default since the windows XP days.
13. Re: Office Space by Lanforod · 2017-07-07 03:22 · Score: 1
  
  No, it is available on Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 too. Storage spaces prefers using ReFS.
14. Re: Office Space by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-07 03:32 · Score: 0
  
  I just answered your question :D
15. Re:Office Space by tepples · 2017-07-07 04:04 · Score: 1
  
  Other than a couple of neckbeards everyone else switched to NTFS when hard drives grew past 32GB.
  Except for those people who switched from hard drives to a combination of internal eMMC and an SDXC slot. The eMMC is formatted NTFS, but the SDXC standard specifies exFAT.
16. Re:Office Space by tepples · 2017-07-07 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  Why would you possible format hard drives with 100s of GB or multi-terabyte as FAT32?
  They're not hard drives, and they're not FAT32. SDXC cards are formatted as exFAT.
17. Re:Office Space by Desler · 2017-07-07 04:45 · Score: 1
  
  So then just copy the files to a hard drive.
18. Re:Office Space by tepples · 2017-07-07 05:31 · Score: 1
  
  If your computer has a 32 GB internal eMMC for Windows and applications and a 64 or 128 GB SDXC card in its SD slot for user data, it's not very convenient to have to carry and plug in a USB NTFS HDD with its own separate power supply just to be able to use OneDrive.
19. Re:Office Space by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-07 06:58 · Score: 0
  
  Remember when Windows 98SE was the faster, smaller OS, immune to Windows XP worms too?
  I used it, with drives and partitions bigger than 32GB (but smaller than 128 GiB)
  The speed on a fast CPU and 7200 rpm HDD was comical : it booted and shut down in seconds, as if you had an SSD.
  It only really started to become unusable in late 2004 or later and since then every OS has to be a multi-user OS with access rights on files and such. But at least, it was more advanced than Mac OS 8 / Mac OS 9.
  If some day I get a super fast 4GHz CPU, I'll use that otherwise useless CPU power to run a PC emulator w/ simulated GPU, and a choice of Windows 95 or Windows 98SE. Because I miss the days were everything worked. linux + dosbox + wine is rather miserable in comparison.
Backwards? by spaceman375 · 2017-07-06 09:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

Usually they declare a bug to be a feature so they don't have to fix it. This time they called a feature a bug & fixed it right away. Round and round we go!

--
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
1. Re:Backwards? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:35 · Score: 1
  
  Official statement from MS: "You're formatting it wrong!"
2. Re:Backwards? by jetkust · 2017-07-06 09:41 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It sounds like they are saying they forgot to properly fake the requirement that NTFS volumes must be used.
3. Re:Backwards? by fustakrakich · 2017-07-06 09:54 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Can we fake the OneDrive into thinking NTFS volumes are being used? Or do we have to face an NTFS volume to the network and copy from that?
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
4. Re:Backwards? by tdelaney · 2017-07-06 10:02 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  It might be possible to have a small NTFS volume filled with junctions to directories on other volumes.
  Can't test this myself as I don't use OneDrive.
5. Re:Backwards? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 12:40 · Score: 1
  
  While not OneDrive, that is exactly how I got around a similar restriction. Something was refusing to accept a mapped network drive as valid. So I created a junction on the local drive that pointed to the network drive, and the program happily used that.
6. Re:Backwards? by Billly+Gates · 2017-07-06 12:50 · Score: 1
  
  NTFS supports data streams which OneDrive uses
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
7. Re:Backwards? by gl4ss · 2017-07-06 16:24 · Score: 1
  
  NTFS supports data streams which OneDrive uses
  seemed to have fallback to work just fine without them.
  now if they would release the patch to just remove it entirely from view when it is not connected to anything.
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
8. Re:Backwards? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 22:45 · Score: 0
  
  At least on Dropbox and Google drive this doesn't work. They will follow the junction at startup and sync, but do not detect changes to files in the location the junction points to.
9. Re:Backwards? by swb · 2017-07-06 23:25 · Score: 1
  
  This is correct, but I've found that it really hasn't been a problem. Dropbox updates itself often enough that it will usually end up self-syncing symlinks, or if you want it now, just pause and then resume syncing and it will sync them.
10. Re:Backwards? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-07 00:22 · Score: 0
  
  Did it have a fallback? Or is it possible that some features failed to work on non-NTFS volumes?
  
  I have never tried to use Onedrive on a non NTFS volume personally but the client does support a fairly nice file versioning system which I suspect makes use of NTFS alternate data streams.
  
  I suspect that the client may appear to work on non NTFS volumes but you may run into problems when trying to revert a file to an older (or perhaps newer) version - particularly if you try to do so without an Internet connection so it can't work around the problem by pulling the requested version from the cloud.
Can but won't let you? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:39 · Score: 0

So if I understand correctly you can do it but MS has now disabled that ability for... reasons?
1. Re:Can but won't let you? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:41 · Score: 1
  
  Yep. They don't want Loonix scum using OneDrive.
2. Re:Can but won't let you? by JediJorgie · 2017-07-06 09:43 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Quite a while ago OneDrive started using streams on objects for sync metadata. I assume that is a requirement for optimized syncing. To the best of my knowledge, streams are not available on Fat32 or exFat.
3. Re:Can but won't let you? by JediJorgie · 2017-07-06 09:47 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Well, ignore my comment. The only stream I found in my OneDrive folder was on the root folder object.
4. Re:Can but won't let you? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:55 · Score: 0
  
  Data leakage issue perhaps? OneDrive has been used by malware to smuggle out data before.
5. Re:Can but won't let you? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 10:08 · Score: 0
  
  But only non-NTFS file systems deserve protection from malware?
  Doesn't sound like Microsoft.
6. Re:Can but won't let you? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 10:39 · Score: 0
  
  To the best of my knowledge Microsoft is trying to be cool again, and doing things like this is so not cool dude.
7. Re:Can but won't let you? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 10:48 · Score: 0
  
  Microsoft typically use streams of piss on their customers. Here is another example of them gleefully urinating on their users.
8. Re:Can but won't let you? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 11:32 · Score: 1
  
  NTFS drivers for Linux exist don't they?
9. Re:Can but won't let you? by Billly+Gates · 2017-07-06 12:51 · Score: 1
  
  NTFS supports teh data streams for things like Indexing
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
10. Re:Can but won't let you? by thegarbz · 2017-07-06 18:29 · Score: 1
  
  Why wouldn't they? Are they better served with non Windows users using a non Microsoft product?
  This has nothing to do with Linux.
11. Re:Can but won't let you? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-07 01:45 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, yes they are. Linux desktop users are a nightmare to support. Exhibit A: Even Google didn't bother to make a native Google Drive client for desktop Linux despite Linux users practically falling over themselves to fellate Larry and Sergey.
12. Re:Can but won't let you? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-07 01:47 · Score: 0
  
  To add, you Loonix scum can use a web browser to access OneDrive like the begging peasants you are.
New Name: by Tablizer · 2017-07-06 09:39 · Score: 2

"ZeroDrive"

--
Table-ized A.I.
1. Re:New Name: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:42 · Score: 0
  
  OMG, I lost...nothing. Meh.
What the hell? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:42 · Score: 0

So something actually worked well and they decided to narrow the applicability and usefulness of their software?
Derp much?
1. Re:What the hell? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:45 · Score: 1
  
  Are you paying them huge sums of money? No? Yeah, that's why they don't care little snowflake.
2. Re:What the hell? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:56 · Score: 0
  
  Found the head of the OneDrive Department
  --Highdude702(cause mods)
3. Re:What the hell? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 10:18 · Score: 0
  
  Thanks. At least I'm not a basement-dwelling beta troll like you.
4. Re:What the hell? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 10:51 · Score: 0
  
  Whereas you suck Microsoft cock, and publicly encourage them to ruin their own software for the short-term benefit of their shareholders.
5. Re:What the hell? by DavidRawling · 2017-07-06 11:48 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, but if you are not paying them in some way, you are not a customer. You are a consumer; you may be a user; some might unfairly say a freeloader. But suggesting you are a customer implies exchange of value. (Merriam Webster, for example, Customer (n): 1: one that purchases a commodity or service The customer used a credit card for the purchase).
6. Re:What the hell? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 13:39 · Score: 0
  
  Also Merriam Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/purchase
  Purchase (v): 1:
  c: to obtain by paying money or its equivalent : buy
  d: to obtain by labor, danger, or sacrifice
  Are we not providing Microsoft, and Google, and Apple, and Facebook, and Amazon, and others something of value to them ie: information slurp in return for the services they provide? The payment is in terms of 'its equivalent' (ie: loss of privacy, loss of control, acceptance of known and unknown risk). The payment is in terms of 'sacrifice' (ie: loss of privacy, loss of control, acceptance of known and unknown risk). For both reasons, it is a purchase which means there is, as you put it, 'payment in some way'.
7. Re:What the hell? by tepples · 2017-07-07 04:08 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, but if you are not paying them in some way, you are not a customer.
  Customers are in fact paying Microsoft. Part of the price of a PC not made by Apple or System76 is a royalty for the OEM copy of Windows installed on the PC.
Stupid Is As Stupid Does by StormReaver · 2017-07-06 09:45 · Score: 1, Insightful

This is yet another opportunity to remind you of the benefits of "The Cloud" (storing your data on other people's servers), one of the stupidest things that people do.
1. Re:Stupid Is As Stupid Does by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 10:07 · Score: 0
  
  The best part of you, buddy, dripped down your mother's leg.
2. Re:Stupid Is As Stupid Does by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 13:55 · Score: 0
  
  I bet you have all your money stuffed under your mattress too....
3. Re:Stupid Is As Stupid Does by radarskiy · 2017-07-06 16:13 · Score: 1
  
  This is yet another opportunity to remind you that redefining the meaning of "the cloud" in a tautological manner to to feed your manufactured outrage is not insightful.
Yet it works on MacOS Extended..... by robberbarron · 2017-07-06 09:56 · Score: 1

So they nuked all other Windows formats but it works just fine on a Mac not using NTFS (MacOS Extended Journaled for example).... Seems rather arbitrary that they didn't even give a technical reason for the removal.
1. Re:Yet it works on MacOS Extended..... by guruevi · 2017-07-06 11:00 · Score: 1
  
  There is no technical reason except that OneDrive is intended for small spaces on computer's primary hard drives however they do sell OneDrive "unlimited" to their Enterprise customers and some people have been grandfathered into an unlimited plan as well.
  When you use external drives (typically formatted as FAT or exFAT for compatibility with eg. Mac) or ReFS (basically distributed file systems) you can basically get 'unlimited' "cloud storage" far beyond the few hundreds to a terabyte a primary boot disk gives you.
  There is no reason your syncing solution doesn't work on modern file systems, it doesn't need low-level access to the drive.
  
  --
  Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Microsoft: "round and round" org run by squares. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:56 · Score: 0

Being socially backward and uncaring toward users is the fundamental foundation of Microsoft. (My opinion, shared by many.)
Extinguish by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:57 · Score: 1

Seems like the extinguish phase just started.
Missing the point by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:58 · Score: 0

Isn't the whole point of "The Cloud" supposed to be to abstract away system differences? Isn't "The Coud" supposed tto be operating system agnostic? Like the web.
Honestly, I hate mindless Microsoft bashing, but it is now 2017, and after all these years, you'd thik they would know better. They are just as stupid and clueless now as they were 20 years ago with I.E, and all those years after where they made life hard by implementing their own "web standard".
Welcome to the cloud! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 09:59 · Score: 0

Where your files are mist in the wind.
Wonder if it was covered in QA sweeps by Wrath0fb0b · 2017-07-06 09:59 · Score: 1

If they never officially believed that they supported it, they probably never QAed it. So now they have a choice to greatly expand the amount of QA coverage (since they basically have to run every test case against every combination of formatted drives) or just fix it not to pretend to support the thing they didn't test.
Did it ever really start working? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 10:10 · Score: 0

Since we're a Microsoft vendor, we're required to use it, and about once a week I have an angry user because they can't find something. I thought for a long time it was PEBAC error, but after doing a "dir /s c:\ > file_list.txt" and then comparing later against missing files on OneDrive, it was OneDrive that was losing files. Amazing how Microsoft just can't seem to get anything to work.
1. Re:Did it ever really start working? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 11:38 · Score: 0
  
  ... I thought for a long time it was PEBKAC error...
  
  ftfy.
Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by msk · 2017-07-06 10:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

. . . every file system under the sun is supported.
But of course OneDrive can't use rsync, because it wasn't invented here.
1. Re:Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by UnknownSoldier · 2017-07-06 11:03 · Score: 1
  
  Mod parent +1.
  This is why tech companies suck -- they keep re-inventing the wheel with their own proprietary crap.
2. Re:Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by omnichad · 2017-07-06 11:25 · Score: 2
  
  Rsync is one-to-one. OneDrive is one-to-many - as is Dropbox and have conflict resolution strategies aimed at the end user. Rsync is great, but it also doesn't do all of it.
3. Re:Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by Sique · 2017-07-06 11:45 · Score: 1
  
  To what I have to add:
  
  #308280 (rickest) reinventing the wheel is exactly what allows us to travel 80mph without even feeling it. the original wheel fell apart at about 5mph after 100 yards. now they're rubber, self-healing, last 4000 times longer. whoever intended the phrase "you're reinventing the wheel" to be an insult was an idiot.
  
  --
  .sig: Sique *sigh*
4. Re:Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 11:47 · Score: 1
  
  This is why tech companies suck -- they keep re-inventing the wheel with their own proprietary crap.
  Said someone who's never waited hours for rsync's gather/compare phase to complete on millions of files, finally deciding to sync about four changed files in a couple of seconds... so long as neither end of the rsync process ran out of memory or got kill -9'd for using too much CPU.
5. Re:Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by Immerman · 2017-07-06 12:09 · Score: 1
  
  I suspect it has less to do with "not invented here" than it does with "can't be leveraged for lock-in"
  
  --
  --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
6. Re:Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 12:29 · Score: 1
  
  Bad argument. It assumes that the phrase "reinventing the wheel" means the exact opposite of what it actually means, points out that this would be stupid, and then stands there grinning smugly, believing that it has accomplished something.
  The reason we can travel 80mph without even feeling it is because we have taken an existing invention, studied it, and improved upon it. Literally reinventing the wheel would be to ignore all the progress made over millennia and start all over again.
7. Re:Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 13:33 · Score: 0
  
  Same Thing
8. Re:Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by thegarbz · 2017-07-06 18:34 · Score: 1
  
  . . . every file system under the sun is supported.
  But of course OneDrive can't use rsync, because it wasn't invented here.
  What an ignorant comment. rsync and cloud storage work in fundamentally different ways. No back end or front end for cloud storage uses rsync, not even the open source ones.
  The reason being simple, rsync works by syncing two data sets. Cloud storage systems have to sync across many and the sync needs to be initiated from all sides of the pipe, and it needs to be able to sync in parallel.
  Not ever problem is a nail even if you have the biggest hammer in the world.
9. Re:Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-07 01:29 · Score: 0
  
  What a way to miss the point. Rsync GETS you to the cloud, Whatever the cloud uses to sync to other sources on the cloud is immaterial. When you're ready to sync back to the machine, the cloud shouldn't give two shits what filesystem you're using. The fact that OneDrive only syncs NTFS is Microsoft's way of saying "piss off" to anyone who isn't locked into their crappy OS.
  THAT is the point. Not that rsync is a 1-1 process.
10. Re:Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-07 03:03 · Score: 0
  
  Blah blah blah. If rsync works then it works. No amount of marketing bullshit is going to change that.
  How many onedrive customers have use cases requiring anything else than plain old rsync? Have most of them even evaluated their needs before settling for onedrive? My bet is on: No they have not.
11. Re: Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by Brockmire · 2017-07-07 08:47 · Score: 1
  
  You misunderstand. There's "one" cloud, but many devices (phone, PC'S, servers, X BOX, etc) that sync the same data. Some devices may be offline. Think multicast, not unicast.
12. Re:Meanwhile in rsync land . . . by Sique · 2017-07-07 08:57 · Score: 1
  
  That's your personal interpretation of "re-inventing the wheel", but that doesn't mean it's the generally accepted one.
  Another example: When I tried to find out who invented the mixing valve, I found that there are at least 2,500 patents for a mixing valve. Each of it was either improving the State of the Art enough to get a new patent, or such a new way to create a mixing valve that no one thought of it before. And if we look deep enough into other inventions, we find the same picture again and again: We are constantly re-inventing everything. And it's not just successively improving existing designs, it's often completely new approaches to the same problem.
  Complaining about re-inventing in general is missing the point.
  
  --
  .sig: Sique *sigh*
Proprietary software power remains intact. by jbn-o · 2017-07-06 10:25 · Score: 1

Microsoft said in a statement that it "discovered a warning message that should have existed was missing when a user attempted to store their OneDrive folder on a non-NTFS filesystem -- which was immediately remedied." According to Ars, Microsoft's position, apparently, is that OneDrive should always have warned about these usage scenarios and that it's only a bug or an oversight that allowed non-NTFS volumes to work.
Their statement and the explanation they offer are a clear example of leveraging the power software proprietors all have: the power to make the terms of the product or service work the way they want it to work and change those terms at any time (including whether to notify users or get the user's consent).

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Digital Citizen
1. Re:Proprietary software power remains intact. by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2017-07-06 11:06 · Score: 1
  
  Darth Nadella: "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."
  (yeah, yeah, I realize he's a little short to pull that off...)
  
  --
  #DeleteChrome
2. Re:Proprietary software power remains intact. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 11:09 · Score: 0
  
  Same is true of non-propitiatory software too. Almost all users have no recourse if the software changes. As an example, look at Firefox. When they switch over to their new plug-in system all the users are screwed. Either stay on an older version and risk security breaches or upgrade and lose the setup you may have been using for decades. Switching to another browser isn't acceptable as that's still a change in product or service, so all the FIrefox users are still at the whims of the software company. Same was true of the systemd roll out, Gnome 3, etc... There are tons of examples.
3. Re:Proprietary software power remains intact. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 11:21 · Score: 0
  
  Darth Nadella: "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."
  (yeah, yeah, I realize he's a little short to pull that off...)
  And completely lacking in power. Even Microsoft has sunken so low that they are outsourcing their executive staff to Indian developers.
4. Re:Proprietary software power remains intact. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 11:27 · Score: 0
  
  That's ridiculous. Millions of coders worldwide are legally allowed to continue where Mozilla leaves off.
  It's ILLEGAL to fix Microsoft's mistakes.
5. Re:Proprietary software power remains intact. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 12:27 · Score: 0
  
  What if that plug in system is the root of those security breaches?
6. Re: Proprietary software power remains intact. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 13:45 · Score: 0
  
  Millions may be allowed, yet there appears to be nobody who does.
7. Re:Proprietary software power remains intact. by jarkus4 · 2017-07-06 15:25 · Score: 1
  
  That's ridiculous. Millions of coders worldwide are legally allowed to continue where Mozilla leaves off.
  Yeah, some try to do so. For example browser I'm currently using Pale Moon was forked from Firefox after their unfortunate interface decisions. There is one big problem tough: they dont have market share so they are at best ignored by devs, sometimes misclassified (as mobile browsers) and at worst just outright blocked (eg slack or new site of my electricity provider)
What was that? by no-body · 2017-07-06 10:55 · Score: 2

15 G, then 5 G and now - hrm......
Are there humans at work - let's assume, then what is their frame of mind?
Imagine, sitting in an office and then comes the work order to .... and you just do what is on that work order and swallow your thoughts about it down...
or, don't even think about it further and do the job, because you have to make a buck and live.
That's how all those popups, nagging ads and other crap comes to life - or that's how the system works, not necessarily for the benefit and enjoyment of the guy/gal at the end of the line.
The mental consequences of constantly blocking out are not researched.
Keep enjoying!
1. Re:What was that? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 11:26 · Score: 0
  
  Imagine, sitting in an office and then comes the work order to .... and you just do what is on that work order and swallow your thoughts about it down...
  or, don't even think about it further and do the job, because you have to make a buck and live.
  Hey, I work at a tech company, and of course I don't give a shit about our terrible products or the customers stupid enough to give us money. I only show up there because I get paid, and I assume it's the same everywhere else.
  We have meetings and idiotic executives that are totally out of touch with technology make bad decisions and we all laugh about it later. I've been at a couple other companies just like this. Yes, my company is done growing and is starting on the failing phase of it's existence, but I don't care that much about it if they keep paying me.
  This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
2. Re:What was that? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 22:23 · Score: 0
  
  The problem is the very second you give a shit, you begin to feel bad, terrible in fact. Corporate culture is so that if you speak up, YOU'RE FIRED! Now, you've got the same shit in your Chief in Command, so expect same bullshit, less accountability and transparancy, because the people don't want it apparently.
  So I advocate feeling like shit, speak up, but from behind the backs of shitheads and let them take the fall themselves. Not speaking up is not an option anymore.
3. Re:What was that? by vtcodger · 2017-07-06 23:25 · Score: 1
  
  "Yes, my company is done growing and is starting on the failing phase of it's existence, but I don't care that much about it if they keep paying me."
  Y'all reckon that they can/will hold it together long enough for you to sock away an adequate retirement nestegg? If not, then you have a bigger problem than your users.
  They can walk away.
  You, on the other hand ...
  
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  You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Okay, reasonable chance by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 11:30 · Score: 0

Okay, reasonable chance that this is the new approach where the files appear to exist locally but are only downloaded on access - because I suspect it's using the same NTFS filter as the Git Virtual File System.. Until now, it's a case of they didn't test on non-NTFS, but my hunch is they are now going to use features that only work on NTFS.
Why on earth MS aren't pushing ReFS, I have no idea. And I could be wrong.
But.. by CptLoRes · 2017-07-06 11:34 · Score: 1

It's in the cloud, so everything is fine right?
1. Re:But.. by vtcodger · 2017-07-06 23:27 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know about you, but I've always found visibility to be really bad in clouds.
  
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  You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by Hamsterdan · 2017-07-06 11:44 · Score: 1

Onedrive is akin to a network share, so it shouldn't even care what the native filesystem is. I could backup my PCs from a network share in Time Machine, so it's an artifiacial limitation

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I've got better things to do tonight than die.
1. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by Serge_Tomiko · 2017-07-06 11:49 · Score: 1
  
  I migrated to NTFS 20 years ago. Why would anyone be using FAT32 today?
2. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by DivineKnight · 2017-07-06 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  Firmware updates. Same reason the Floppy Drive is still around.
3. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by Hamsterdan · 2017-07-06 12:41 · Score: 1
  
  Digital Camera? Some of my Nikons use FAT32. Not everybody is using NT exclusively. Some users use other filesystems.
  
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  I've got better things to do tonight than die.
4. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by Hamsterdan · 2017-07-06 12:42 · Score: 1
  
  This ^
  ANd when I burn a flash drive to install linux, guess what filesystem it uses?
  
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  I've got better things to do tonight than die.
5. Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 13:50 · Score: 0
  
  And are you syncing a Linux install thumb drive t OneDrive?
6. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 13:57 · Score: 0
  
  So now OneDrive has stopped working on your cameras?
7. Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 14:02 · Score: 0
  
  Guess what format UEFI partitions use.
8. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 15:19 · Score: 0
  
  Not everybody is using NT exclusively. Some users use other filesystems.
  Microsoft is offering a patch this bug.
9. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by radarskiy · 2017-07-06 16:24 · Score: 1
  
  No, it's not a network share. The files are replicated on the local disk, then the changes are synchronized.
10. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by Hamsterdan · 2017-07-06 16:41 · Score: 1
  
  It doesn't run on the local OS, (like using a Linux share on Windows, Windows doesn't care what filesystem is running on Linux). The same should be true of Onedrive.
  
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  I've got better things to do tonight than die.
11. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 18:23 · Score: 0
  
  It also doesn't support exFAT, a Microsoft-created and patented file system that is newer than NTFS and is the standard file system for SDXC memory cards. Not supporting it is bizarre.
12. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by vtcodger · 2017-07-06 23:54 · Score: 1
  
  OTOH, many people decided ten or even 20 years ago that market forces would eventually make Microsoft increasingly user hostile and migrated much/all of their workflow elsewhere. For them, proprietary NTFS -- even if supported in their alternative -- was and is an anathema.
  
  --
  You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
13. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by painandgreed · 2017-07-07 02:59 · Score: 1
  
  It doesn't run on the local OS, (like using a Linux share on Windows, Windows doesn't care what filesystem is running on Linux). The same should be true of Onedrive.
  It does run on the local OS. That's what they're talking about, the local syncing client and the local repository of the online files. I'm sure the Office 365 and sharepoint links to the One Drive work ok no matter what file system you are using, but here they are talking about the downloaded OneDrive client and where it keeps those synced files.
14. Re:Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by radarskiy · 2017-07-07 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  "It doesn't run on the local OS"
  If you took the drive out and mounted it on an unnetworked computer that never had OneDrive installed, all of the files would be present in a regular directory and have all of the regular filesystem metadata.
Wtf by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 12:02 · Score: 0

If a cloud storage system depends on what filesystem you have on your local machine, they have a really bad design.
1. Re:Wtf by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 23:25 · Score: 0
  
  I doubt the OneDrive service needs it; but the current version of the Onedrive client which has gone though a pile of revisions over the years seems to.
  In my unsubstantiated opinion, most likely related to files-on-demand coming-soon feature.
  DISCLAIMER: This is just a guess. It's plausible to me, but I am nowhere near sure.
The real question by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-06 16:05 · Score: 0

Is what do NTFS volumes offer MS that other ones do not.
Something they could abuse for "telemetry" or data mining?
ADS.
Clearly no one was having problems using non NTFS volumes on onedrive, so why disable it?
Provably false by radarskiy · 2017-07-06 16:26 · Score: 2

OneDrive is working just fine on HPS+ and APFS.
1. Re:Provably false by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-07 00:06 · Score: 0
  
  Until they "fix" it again.
You can rely on Microsoft by OneHundredAndTen · 2017-07-07 00:46 · Score: 1

To do whatever it takes to piss you, the end user. As usual, a big middle finger for you, Microsoft.
microsoft by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-07 01:57 · Score: 0

how about this; fuck you biatch
Fine! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-07 02:49 · Score: 0

one-drive less to care about. What's not to like?